Two approaches to dealing with the combined public health crisis and economic crisis.
(1) Have people privately reduce mingling with one another PLUS have government order people to take steps to reduce mingling. Then try to deal with the economic consequences by increasing government spending by $2 trillion or more, with a share of that to be financed by money creation assuming the government is not going to be able to borrow that much on such short notice.
(2) Instruct people on how to tie a scarf over the nose and mouth.* Meanwhile, ramp up mask production, so that as soon as possible masks are widely available. Point out to everyone that wearing something over their nose and mouth is a public duty. It’s not (just) protecting yourself from infection, it protects other people from being infected unknowingly by you. If necessary, legislate fines and enforce them when people go out in public without wearing something over nose and mouth.
With either (1) or (2), you still need to isolate people who are coughing and who are known to have the virus. With either (1) or (2), you need to be supportive of health care workers, search for cures, search for a vaccine, and so on.
With either (1) or (2), there is an imposition on liberty. With (1), you tell people where they are allowed to go and tell businesses they have to shut down. With (2), you tell people that they can’t leave their noses and mouths naked.
With either (1) or (2), there will continue to be new cases of the virus. The goal is to reduce the spread of the virus down to a level that will keep hospital emergency rooms from getting overwhelmed. Both (1) and (2) leave gaps. For example, under (1) there will be some mingling, either by people breaking the rules or people who are exceptions to the rules. But even though there are gaps, it seems plausible that either approach could greatly reduce the spread rate.
With (1), a lot of economic activity is curtailed. With (2), some people will still be leery of getting onto planes or going on cruises. Eating in restaurants will be awkward, and many people will put off doing so. But more businesses will feel ok about opening their offices. And more individuals will feel ok about getting haircuts, shopping in stores, and going to sporting events–provided that they see everyone around them wearing masks (which should turn out to be the case, if social pressure and law enforcement are effective).
With (1), government finance will be shaky. I don’t know why more people aren’t worried about this. If there is no down side to increasing spending by 10 percent of GDP, why doesn’t the government do so all the time? I think that the answer is that eventually you turn into Zimbabwe, with hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is like a virus, in that by the time you can see it, it’s too late to stop it. Hyperinflation destroys the social fabric. It’s something to fear.
Finally, I wonder how charitable I should be about the health advisers, economic pundits, and political leaders who are committed to (1). Those poobahs will be more important if we implement (1) instead of (2). I hope that is not what tips the decision.
Thanks to Russ Roberts for a helpful conversation.
UPDATE: *We would also need to instruct people on sanitary use of a scarf. Best not to reverse it, not to touch it while wearing it, and also to wash it or heat treat it frequently. I would like to thank Dallas Weaver for pointing this out. He has some advice on the use of masks. In an email, he writes “I assume you have noticed that all the countries that are under control use masks.”
I fear that if Trump relaxes the containment restraints at the end of the current period, as he suggested he would consider, he will be viciously attacked for putting profits before people. Economists who dare to agree with your approach will likely be about as persuasive as those who advocate letting prices rise during a crisis.
Trump would be putting profits and economics before health. A few commentators and pundits have begun to point out that the political party that ranted about death panels in 2009 and are always ranting about Choose Life has not become the pro-death and suffering party.
“A few commentators and pundits”
who I am sure are disinterested seekers of truth, pursuing it wherever it leads, without fear or favor.
Alabama just published their death panels guidelines.
Do you really think that MLB or the NBA will come back because some people in the crowd are wearing masks except when they are eating, drinking, or cheering. Do you really think Disneyworld will reopen if people promise to wear masks and wash their hands.
The other question is what should be done to business that create mini-epidemics by refusing to follow the rules. There are enough idiot bosses out there to create a huge number of outbreaks like the 30 people at Biogen.
https://twitter.com/Scholars_Stage/status/1242084301719683072
But public support had burst: shops ordered their clerks to stop wearing the things, and citizens of San Francisco organized—I kid you not—a “Anti-Mask League of San Francisco.”
The league successfully got the SF city council to repeal the ordinance in December for a good three weeks until it was put back in place around Christmas. But by that point the entire city was civilly disobeying the mask order, and continued on in their disobedience until Feb
Perhaps San Francisco should not have squandered its moral authority on plastic bags and drinking straws.
And we creep closer to the edge of the abyss. You think this is panic? Just wait until the all the grocery stores have nothing to buy.
#2 Is the correct approach. #1 Is probably workable. I am guessing the best of both will be used, but you will also get the worst of both- both parties love a crisis for spending increases.
Look, the economy can’t be closed for as long as it will take to kill the virus- that we have to actually argue about this shows how ridiculous a people we have become. You either build herd immunity quickly, or you draw out for years and end up with more deaths than you would have gotten with the quick route. You have until the end of April, at which point the damage will take years to fix in the economy.
There is no serious upper bound to how many fire extinguishers can be spent in failing to put out a fire.
You keep harping on random screening. This will only be of benefit if it is a screen with immunoassays looking for antibodies specific to COVID-19, both IgM and IgG. A random screen on people without symptoms is all but certain to show one of two things- they are all negative, or they will be possible idiosyncratic false positives- you still won’t know if they are actually infected until you do the immunoassay.
These assays now exist from a number of companies, but I don’t see them being deployed anywhere, and I suspect the reason why is that no one with authority in the government or academia wants to it known exactly how many people have or had the disease. This information will be actively suppressed until the results can be polluted with a vaccine.
The spending fiasco train has left the station and is headed to Zimbabwe. The questioning is how to stop it. Perhaps the single most efficacious policy move now would be to pass a bill terminating all public defined benefit retirement plans. Just shut them down. Refund all current employee contributions over a five year period and convert Current beneficiary accounts to a fixed present value sum to be paid out over a similar schedule.
Why do you think masks are so effective. The evidence is pretty spotty. That’d be an awfully big bet to make with public health…
Oh, get over yourself. The evidence that they are effective in keeping a sick person’s germs to himself is quite strong. And if you look at how much better the Asian countries are doing, it seems correlated with their use of masks.
If you want, we could let one city try this before rolling it out nationwide. But don’t be so obnoxious about it.
Here’s one reason:
https://twitter.com/naval/status/1242152190581428226?s=20
“6 out of 7 studies showed that face masks (surgical and N95) offered significant protection against SARS.
Wearing a mask in public was associated with a 70% reduction in risk of catching SARS.
Fabric masks might be comparable to some surgical masks.”
The bottom four lines are Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea, all places that use masks. Maybe it’s just one big anecdote but maybe it’s significant.
When things open up after Easter, it may be a good idea to say that people can only go out if they are wearing a mask (and keeping closed places where a mask doesn’t work, e.g., restaurants and gyms). It’s such a simple rule to enforce. Of course, we probably won’t have enough masks.
I like this post. Two more observations:
(1) grand gesture which gets virtue signalers more likes and satisfies their desire to tell others what to do
(2) sounds boring to thought police/groupthinkers who were told they don’t work (not considering why they are used in hospitals).
I long for the days when folks could entertain the idea that there is indeed ‘more than one way to skin a cat.’ And, sometimes, even the simplest solutions can be just effective.
IMHO, losing that has been a pandemic.
Good news on virus mutations, there seems to be none according to an off hand, unverified article in one of the news. But official reports should be days away.
This means that once we have an auto immune response, that asme response can be reactivated if the body is conditioned. Some reports of plasma transfer verify that we do indeed produce robust anti-bodies. Wait a fews days on that also.
If the 28% of New Yorkers with the virus can get to bed, and watch for respiratory distress, and survive, then 28% of New Yorkers are immune, a great relief and the curve is flattened.
A targeted vaccine is also easier with no mutations. And with no mutations maybe a simple procedure to duplicate the anti-body in egg yolk, the usual method, may work.
The tragedy is the first wave of New Yorkers, they are the test groups. From their dyings we get the best off-the-shelf cocktail for symptom suppression and education.
Stay home, call the doctor, watch the temp, get your drug cocktail and be prepared for emergency transport on respiratory stress. The ugliness will pass and we will see a doubling of immunity every week as remissions happen. Each wave should see a halfing of the death rates as treatment improves. Add in the social distancing.
George Scott in Dr. Strangelove, we caught them with their pants down, we lose, what, 20,000 Yorkers, hardly get our hair messed. But it may be over in two weeks, before we get our mask order. Human natural immunology beats this thing, en mass, and takes a bunch of friendly kills up front.
Except, all the medical knowledge behind symptom suppression which can come out of this mess as fast as the battle rages, weeks, days; limits the friendly kills.
The CCP isn’t stupid. They didn’t tank their economy on a whim. They used both masks and social distancing (and a bunch of other things).
Ah, the libertarian argument for the niqab.